Discussions Tool What is the Discussions tool? The Discussions tool provides an area for collaboration allowing learners to post, read, and reply to messages on different topics, share thoughts about course materials, ask questions, share files, or work with your peers on assignments.
Why use the Discussions Tool?
Creating a Discussion Forum and Topic
• Have you ever run out of time just when a class discussion became interesting? • Have you wondered how to involve the quiet learners who often need time to absorb the material? • Have you ever been concerned that group work is often logistically difficult for learners? • Would you like to enhance the critical thinking level of your learners?
Forums are used to organize your discussion topics into categories. You must have a Forum created before creating Topics. Topics are where learners post and read messages and they cannot exist outside of Forums.
Consider some of the advantages of moving some classroom discussions online. Use the Discussions tool in your course to: • Encourage users to share thoughts on course material with their peers • Set up forums for users to ask questions • Pose a question for the class to debate • Discuss the answers to an assignment • Create forums for groups to work on group assignments
To create a forum (and topic) select: • New Forum • If you want to automatically create a topic in the Forum with the same name, select the Create a New Topic in this Forum with the same title check box. • Additional options to consider include approving messages before posted, visibility restrictions; user must compose a message before participating in responses checkbox, availability restrictions etc.
Scenarios
Availability and Restrictions
Scenario: You instruct learners to engage in a debate which requires them to work in groups. They are required to present a convincing argument and be prepared to counter opposing arguments. Aside for the group logistics issue you want each group to present their arguments first before reflecting and responding on the opposing argument.
You can create and attach Release Conditions if you want a Forum or Topic to be available to users only after they fulfill other specified tasks. Examples of release conditions include completing a dropbox submission, scoring a specified grade in a particular quiz, completing a survey and being enrolled in a particular section.
Possible Solution: Using the discussions tool to allow learners to engage first in a group discussion (which only authorized group members can access) to fully flush out their arguments. Here they can share their resources, ideas and reflections. Then create a discussion forum/topic with specific restrictions requiring learners to post their arguments before they are able to view and comment on other posts.
Group Restrictions is available if you select the restrict this Topic to the following groups check box to restrict a Forum or Topic so that it is only accessible to members of a specific group.
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Note: You must create groups or sections before you can set group or section restrictions.